The St. Louis Blues have been long-rumored as a major seller this season. While their bounce back to life may have delayed those plans somewhat, the chatter isn’t going away. There’s good reason why.

The Blues have several solid veteran pieces that contending teams could want. Also, St. Louis has cornerstone players that could anchor an up-and-coming club for the foreseeable future. But there’s one player Doug Armstrong would be crazy to trade.

That player is Jake Neighbours. Neighbours has rightfully drawn plenty of interest. After all, who wouldn’t want a 23-year-old, former first-round pick on their squad? He’s a hardworking winger who can score.

This season, Neighbours has 10 goals and 17 points in 26 games. He missed some time with an injury, but came back ahead of schedule. That’s the sort of player any team would take hands down. And that’s why the Blues would be insane to move him.

That opinion is one that resident Blues’ expert Jeremy Rutherford echoes. In a December 19 piece in The Athletic, Rutherford looked at Blues players reportedly available to trade. In particular, he honed in on Neighbours, shooting down talk of trading him.

Rutherford wrote:

“This seems highly unlikely unless Armstrong was presented with a no-brainer. Teams have been asking about his availability the past couple of seasons, and, so far, the Blues have turned down those overtures.”

Smart thinking. Rutherford expanded on his thoughts by stating:

“Despite the club’s current struggles, Neighbours is just 23 years old, so he fits right into the age bracket of the players the Blues are seeking to rebuild their roster. He’s also in the first year of a reasonable two-year, $7.5 million contract ($3.75 million AAV).”

That’s precisely the point. While the Blues are still technically rebuilding, moving Neighbours now would be a ludicrous move unless they could get something of equal or greater value. That’s a possibility that Chris Johnston considers. The notable insider wrote:

“Young, affordable, hard-working wingers don’t grow on trees. There would be very little reason for the Blues to seriously consider moving on from Neighbours unless it was part of a blockbuster. There’s simply too much upside to pass on right now.”

The reality is that the Blues have little to think about here. Keeping Neighbours is a no-brainer unless he were bundled in a much larger deal. But unless it was a trade of magnitude like the Quinn Hughes swap, Neighbours will be staying put. He’s the sort of player the Blues can continue building around.

Perhaps at some point down the line, Neighbours may become a more reasonable trade target. But that’s a bridge that will hopefully come up well down the line.